Do-it-yourself clamp: different options, production, use

Craftsmen are drinking. Excuse me, they are having a intimate conversation. For one, instead of the sacramental “Vasya, do you respect me?” “Vasya, how many hands would you like for yourself?” comes out of your mouth? He thinks about it: “How much? But who knows... Well, how much work is needed there..."

Hands, of course, to hold, press, pick up, etc. Therefore, such an auxiliary tool as temporary removable clamps of various types - clamps - is always lacking for a craftsman. There wasn’t enough at a time when these same clamps cost a penny. Nowadays they can charge more than 1000 rubles for a good clamp. Despite the fact that now even in small piece production, power tools, electric and gas welding, pressure gluing and other technologies that require reliable holding of parts during the working process are widespread. The purpose of this article is to tell the reader how to make a clamp with your own hands at home. Preferably - from scrap materials with minimal need for welding and turning work.

Note : in English, a clamp is cramp (screw), bar clamp (spring-lever) or simply clamp, similar to how a screwdriver (screw driver) is often called simply screw. A person who knows spoken English well, but is unfamiliar with the technical features (these are very different languages), hearing something like “Give me screw driver,” most likely will not understand what they want from him. Moreover, poorly educated English-language articles are most often “swallowed.” If you happen to find yourself in a similar situation, listen: “the screw” means a tool, and “a screw” means some kind of threaded hardware (screw, screw) that is twisted with it.

Varieties

The purpose of this publication is not to build something like an encyclopedia of mounting clamps - there are many types of them, and there are even more patents for new, “super-super” ones. Our task is to show which clamps are most needed in a home workshop, and how best to make a clamp without wasting a lot of material and time.

The most common types of clamps in handicraft production are shown in Fig:

G-shaped (G-cramp; G-clamp) is the most reliable, reliable and cheapest of the general-purpose clamps. Disadvantages: it takes a long time to tighten and can turn the parts being glued if the stop hinge is of poor quality or not maintained. The latter is quite important: an adhesive layer that has not set is a good lubricant, but it is undesirable to separate and recompress the surfaces being glued together, as the strength of the dried joint decreases sharply. In addition, a regular G-clamp does not hold round parts well, so a special pipe clamp is used to secure pipes or a round profile for welding or butt soldering (see next figure). Assembled from ordinary structural steel s=(2.5-4) mm, such a welded clamp provides reliable fixation of pipes up to d(120-150)x(1.5-4) mm.

Clamp for welding and butt soldering of pipes
F-shaped (F-cramp). Quick-clamping, operates on the principle of jamming the sliding stop in the dead center position. Pressure until it is firmly secured is most often provided by a screw clamp, as in a G-shaped clamp. An even “softer” and faster clamping, but less reliable, is provided by a trigger-eccentric clamping mechanism, see below. The most versatile and widespread of the clamps. The main disadvantage is that due to vibrations and shocks during operation, it can self-unclip and release. Or, on the contrary, it jams tightly, and when wedged with a hammer blow (see below), either the clamp or the part “shoots out”. It is not suitable for adaptation to butt welding of pipes: the jaws are driven by indirect heating and the pipe joint moves apart.
C-shaped (C-clamp, fixing tongs). A fairly narrowly specialized tool. The main purpose is to compress the parts to be glued. Simple C-clamps are made with a spring clamp. The trigger-lever clamp allows you to precisely set the clamping force.
Angle clamps for welding linear parts (pipes, profiles) at a given angle. There is no completely established special Anglo-American term. The most commonly used are welding clamp and dead-lock clamp.
Joiner's bench - a carpentry clamp for joining panels from boards, slats and beams, assembling units from shaped parts (for example, railings with balusters). On the trail. rice. a rail clamp is shown; There are also rack and pipe ones, see below. Please note that pipe clamps are sold under the name “pipe clamp”, and clamps for end-to-end welding/soldering of round timber should be searched for under the query “welded clamp”.
E-shaped (E-clamp). A highly specialized tool for edging carpentry with glue. If you need to carefully glue an edge on existing valuable furniture/interior design, it is difficult to do without an E-clamp.
O-shaped or tape, or crimp grip (loop stay, loop brace). Band clamps are most often used by virtuoso carpenters and furniture makers-restorers. If you can fetch up to $1000 or more for a well-restored antique Viennese chair, then for a slightly skewed or wobbly chair they will fetch, at best, 15-20 of the same ones. Making a frame for a large painting or photograph without a tape clamp is also not so easy.
Lever-plunger (precision clamp). When the trigger is pressed, the plunger (pusher) with the clamping stop moves smoothly forward. The trigger is released - the plunger is fixed by a spring-loaded slide, which becomes in the dead center position. Pressing again releases the slide and further advances the plunger. A good lever-plunger clamp can securely clamp a chicken egg without damaging its shell. In a home workshop, such precision clamping is unlikely to be needed, but suddenly a good precision clamp can be obtained from a mounting gun for tubes with silicone, etc. viscous compounds. A fixed jaw can be easily installed into the opening (window) for the neck of the tube, and a movable one is mounted on the rod instead of the standard pusher. If necessary, both can be removed and the tool can be used for its intended purpose.

How to do which

Any of the clamps described above can be made independently in a home workshop. Carpentry clamps are made of metal - the wooden frame and jaws of the tool will not withstand the back pressure of the material of the part(s), the clamp will weaken during operation, and the clamp itself will become unusable. With welded and soldered clamps it’s already clear: only metal; wood is a flammable material.

Carpentry clamps for working with valuable wood or products are best made of wood, but you can also use metal ones with spacers made of plywood or even shingles. It is better to use wooden clamps for gluing into a layer (on thick workpieces from several thin ones), even if metal or plastic is being glued - wooden jaws provide a more uniform distribution of pressure over the plane and, accordingly, better gluing quality. Fragile parts (glass, etc.) are compressed for gluing only with wooden clamps.

Options for using tongue and groove floorboards

Due to their high price, tongue and groove boards are not used very often. However, apartments decorated with this noble material look very bright and original.

The tongue and groove board is perfect as a floor covering for a terrace

The first option for using tongue and groove boards is finishing a subfloor. In this case, you need to lay a decorative covering on top of the boards. For laying on the subfloor, you can use solid pine boards; they are not damp and are cheaper than all other types of wood.

Tongue and groove boards look best in spacious rooms with ecological or laconic interior styles that prefer simple shapes. This finish will fit especially well into loft, modern and eco styles.

Another way to use tongue and groove boards is to finish the floor. This design move looks great in most interiors. To finish the front surface, boards made of larch, oak or ash are most often used. Such tree species are stronger, and they also look much more noble than pine materials.

Pine boards look harmonious in combination with wallpaper in muted colors. Also, if you want to make the flooring more original, you can treat it with stain of any color. This technique will provide the flooring with additional protection.

G-shaped

The frames of factory-produced G-clamps are cast. It is impossible to organize a steel foundry in a garage or barn, even in a forge on your own property. Since G-clamps, being the most “graspy” ones, are used mainly in metalworking and welding work with rather long and/or heavy parts, a homemade G-shaped clamp must be made of welded or solid metal.

Craftsmen often weld themselves clamps from sheet steel, pos. 1 in Fig.:

Homemade G-Clamps

Apparently, copying the profile of the frames of factory products, which in this case is incorrect. Profiles of cast frames of clamps are shown in pos. 2. Pay attention to the fairings and fillets (shown by arrows). Smoothing the profile is necessary to avoid the concentration of mechanical stress: they “love” corners and crevices, like bed bugs. But the weld does not work like a fillet! No, the clamp most likely will not break or bend. However, the recoil of the clamped part will move the frame a little, and it will be difficult to achieve precise fixation, and it is possible that the part may rotate when the clamp is tightened.

Homemade clamps made from channel sections are quite reliable (item 3). Disadvantages: labor-intensive, disproportionately heavy compared to the working width. You can cut a channel into clamp frames if you need to compress the parts very tightly. The best option for clamp frames for normal work is made from a square profile pipe, pos. 4. Depending on the size and wall thickness of the workpiece, clamps from corrugated pipe can be made for a working width of up to 1 m or more, see video:

Video: clamps from a profile pipe

Note: for the manufacture of the most important unit of the G-clamp - the screw clamp - see the end, since it is also used in other types of clamps.

G.E.

A type of G-clamp is a clamping one, which could roughly be called a GE-clamp. Clamps are well known to builders of small wooden boats, but they will also be very useful in small wooden construction (for example, a country or frame house, outbuilding, etc.).

Drawings of the clamping clamp and the method of their use are shown in the figure:

Drawings and procedure for using clamping clamps

For example, when sewing, say, a crossbar (truss structure) of a roof, each subsequent board is first pressed tightly against the previous one, and then attached to the rafter beams. Accordingly, the reliability and durability of the entire roofing pie are greatly increased.

Types of fixtures

There are several varieties of these devices that can provide fixation of workpieces.

Conventionally, they can be divided into three groups:

Conventional - secure the workpiece on the work table.
Angular – capable of holding two workpieces at a certain angle relative to each other.
Volumetric – have a complex design that allows you to simultaneously fix three elements at once.

Fixed parts are much easier to connect with each other, they are easy to work with, and the result is of high quality.
A regular clamp is C-shaped. It is equipped with a special bracket and a threaded clamp. These devices come in plastic, metal, and wood. Angle clamps are the most common type, since they are used to perform a large number of jobs.

Work time is reduced, and there is no need to attract additional workers to help.

F-shaped

The device of the F-clamp, so to speak, in its entirety, is shown in the following. rice.:

F-clamp device

During use, the shoe is moved along the guide until the heel touches the part. Then with your thumb you move the pawl or press it (depending on the design of the latch), and the shoe becomes wedged on the guide. Then the part is pressed by turning the handle of the screw clamp, or by retracting the trigger of the eccentric clamp. Unfastening and unclenching - in reverse order.

There is no particular point in installing a complex locking mechanism in a homemade F-clamp. Then, to jam the shoe, press on its inner butt, or lightly hit it with a light hammer if the clamp is powerful and wide-grip. As a rule, the slide self-weeds itself when the screw is unclamped or the trigger is thrown into the socket. If the shoe is jammed, wedge it with a light blow to the outer butt from the side of the stop (in the direction opposite to the jamming one).

Left on the trail. rice. Drawings of a quick-release F-clamp with wooden jaws are given. In the center is the appearance of the tool, and on the right is the procedure for using it. Dimensions are converted from inch; they may be rounded to the nearest whole mm.

Drawings, appearance and procedure for using an F-clamp with wooden jaws

The main purpose of this clamp is clamping when gluing into a layer. The preferred sponge material is maple, elm, hornbeam, beech, oak or other wood that combines high strength and toughness; For example, the thrust combs of jointing and copying machines for wood are made from such wood. For other options for homemade quick-release clamps, see the video selection:

Video: homemade F-shaped clamp

Video: eccentric clamp

Video: quick clamp - DIY clamp

Installation of tongue and groove boards

Structurally, a tongue and groove board is similar to a regular board, but it has a longitudinal groove on one side and a tongue (tenon) on the other side. Due to these elements, simple installation of a floor from a tongue-and-groove board is ensured: the tongue of the next one is inserted into the groove of the previous board, resulting in a reliable and tight connection.

Grooved boards, unlike edged boards, have a perfectly smooth surface, so additional sanding of the floor made from tongue and groove boards is not required. The underside of the boards is often not treated, but there are always ventilation holes on it that ensure air circulation in the underground space, which significantly extends the service life of the coating.

High-quality laying of a tongue-and-groove floor allows you to assemble a structure without cracks, and such a structure will not creak and wear out, as often happens with a covering made of edged boards. Of course, if you lay wet boards or do not prevent moisture from getting on them, then sooner or later even the highest quality material will rot, so these nuances should be taken into account in advance.

Corner welds

The corner clamp for welding work must be entirely metal. High accuracy of fixation of parts and stability (stability) of their positioning are not required in this case: welding is not a precision work, and a couple of clamps are enough so that the clamp can be removed and welded without it. But the clamp must be applied (or inserted into it) on round and profile pipes, as well as on solid profiled long pieces. A “gentle” clamp is also useless.

Based on these considerations, the best material for the frame of a welding clamp is a steel angle with a thickness of 3 mm, pos. And in the figure:

Angle clamps for welding and soldering work on metal

Closing the corner into a triangle with a transverse tie will greatly increase the strength of the clamp, and by adding a couple more clamps to the crossbar, we get a clamp for welding at angles of 90 and 45 degrees, pos. B. The clamps are definitely screw: the eccentric, firstly, will not hold a heavy length; secondly, from heating during operation it can simply deteriorate.

Workflow algorithm

Basically, the clamp clamps parts at right angles. But you can install a slope in the design if necessary.

Metal devices

Metal devices hold the workpiece tightly, they are stable and more reliable.

The following procedure must be followed:

The body part is created, and alloys with a thickness of 10 mm are used to produce the base. Clamps are made from angles that are welded or bolted.
A metal rod, console, or several nuts fastened together are suitable for the clamping device. Holes are drilled on the bracket and threads are screwed on. Fixed to the base with bolts.
When forming an angle, pay attention to the clamping brackets. Only connect corners of the same size. A reliable design would be a fixed coupling with an angle, installation of 2 of the same element, pressed to the brackets and fastened by welding.
Correct installation of the mobile device. The guides are attached to the sides; the internal base will move along them. A groove is cut in the direction of the beam dividing the structure from the corner into 2 equal parts.
Use a drill to make holes, and use a screwdriver to tighten the bolts with nuts and washers.
The hardware is chosen with a thread on the rod, which is not screwed to the head.

You can try these recommendations in practice:

cut 3 strips of 45 mm wide and 110, 260 and 510 (mm) long from a metal sheet;
prepare rectangular iron plates;
weld 1 sheet onto the base;
2 steel sheet is welded to the smaller side;
connected by welding the washer;
apply the nuts to the moving part.
the leg of the rod is installed in a parallel position;
welding of the first steel rectangle is performed to the outside;
the mobile part is fixed inside the device at the ends;
The washers are welded to the rod.

The conventional device creates problems with some types of work. Due to the limited installation location that can perform operations at right angles. The limitation is eliminated by a detachable bolted connection and an adjustable clamping bolt. Using hardware, select an angle, then attach the workpieces.

Carpenter's pliers

Wooden temporary clamps are used in carpentry as widely as steel ones in plumbing and welding. Due to the characteristics of the main structural material, carpentry clamps are made almost exclusively C-shaped (pincer clamps).

The most powerful of the carpentry clamping devices is the alligator clamp, pos. 1 in Fig.:

Types of carpentry clamps

Sponges made of oak, elm, beech, hornbeam, walnut. Threaded pairs – from M12. Clamping parts with a crocodile is a troublesome task, so instead they often use an articulated screw C-clamp, pos. 2. Its “jaws” can be glued from plywood, and only the lining (“lips”) can be glued from durable wood. Instead of a shaped nut, it is possible to use a regular hexagonal nut, pressing it into the handle in a vice; in this case, the handle should be made of maple, beech or elm; oak may split when pressed.

Alligator clamps are used to securely hold fairly large and heavy parts. When gluing, you don’t need a strong clamp, but you need a lot of clamps, at least 3-4 per 1 linear meter. m glue joint. Therefore, carpentry clamps for gluing are most often made of plywood. Each “jaw” is glued together from 3 or another odd number of layers. In one of the “jaws” with a protrusion there will be a middle layer, and in the opposite one there will be two outer ones; In this way, and with the help of a steel pin, a hinge is formed. The clamp is spring (pos. 3 in the figure), and made from available elastic materials, pos. 4.

Cutting out and adjusting blanks of plywood crocodile clamps is a labor-intensive task, but the modern craftsman has at his disposal an excellent substitute - cuttings of large-diameter PVC pipes. A split ring made of pipe, a pair of wooden sticks, the same number of pieces of garden hose, and a clamp for pressing when gluing is ready, pos. 5. Cheap and cheerful. For more information about wooden clamps, see the videos:

Video: DIY wooden clamps

For the second, we advise you to go to YouTube and read the comments, there are tips on the case.

Operating principle

The principle of operation of the clamp is very simple. It is necessary to separate the jaws so that they are separated from each other at a distance of 3 cm greater than the width of the shield that will be installed. Next you need to fix them on the pipe. To do this, tighten the nuts that are located at the edges. The blanks must be placed on the tubes and sealed with glue. Then they need to be pulled together by rotating the “lamb”.

If you know how to use a grinder and a welding machine, you can make the same clamp for gluing wood from metal.

To maintain the plane of the plot with tubes, it is recommended to arrange the clamps in a checkerboard pattern. The main advantage of such a tool is its ease of manufacture and operation.

Vayms

Boards/slats/beams were assembled into shields by the carpenters of Ancient Egypt; By the way, they already knew a wood lathe. But if you look through carpentry manuals and promotional materials from 100-120 years ago, you will find that back then furniture for the poor was made from wood of a quality that would be elite in today’s times. And then, in orders for production (piece by piece) it is stipulated “as the material arrives.” This is the first. Secondly, tastes have changed. Today's ones make us remember the Rococo era - our contemporaries prefer something “natural”, pretentious; if possible - unique. Both circumstances could not but affect the designs of clamps - special carpentry clamps for gluing long lumber along the edges, which is bonding.

If you want to make, for example, a simple kitchen stool “like grandma’s”, and you have straight-layered boards for this, without knots or strands, then it is quite possible to get by with traditional homemade rim, pos. 1 and 2 in Fig.

Archaic (traditional) and modern vaymes

But if you are planning to build a shield like the one in Fig. 3 (and it’s beautiful, after all), then the clamping force will be needed an order of magnitude greater - after all, now the boards need to not only be pressed, but literally pressed into each other, and so that the entire assembly does not swell or turn out.

It is precisely this kind of unification that is carried out by modern Vimes. The rail clamp mentioned at the beginning is an expensive pleasure, and at least 5-6 of them are needed for a tabletop panel. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent homemade equivalent, but pipe and rack wedge stops (item 3) are sold and rented at reasonable prices. A sufficiently powerful rack wedge can be assembled on a section of steel profile pipe, pos. 4. If you need to quickly glue a couple of small boards into an edge, then a mini-frame for this can be built from an unusable hacksaw for metal, see next. rice.

Mini-weapon from a hacksaw

For other designs of homemade weims, see the story:

Video: do-it-yourself wires

Crimping grip

Band crimp clamps (crimp clamps, O-clamps) are rarely used by home craftsmen. But it’s not a technological circumstance that makes me remember them: 3,000 rubles. For a branded one it's still cheap. Meanwhile, an O-clamp that is no worse can be made with your own hands.

For this you will first need a flat textile sling and 4 swivels for it. The corner clamp, jaw and screw clamp slide are made of wood and fiberboard, on the left in Fig. The procedure for use has some peculiarities (by the way, the same applies to the most expensive branded ones).

Homemade crimping clamp for furniture and carpentry work

Let's say we need to assemble a series of identical photo frames. If they are different, the tool will have to be retooled for each. If not, then:

The product parts are initially assembled dry, without glue.
Lay it out on a plaz (flat plane) and use the marks on it to set 90 degree angles.
Loop the slings and place the clamps in the corners.
By moving the swivels, we achieve a weak, uniform tension on the branches of the sling (on the right in the figure).
Gradually tighten the clamp, watching the corners of the product.
If one of the corners diverges, then you need to apply a little sling in its direction, pulling it through the sotv. swivels.
The adjustment of the crimping clamp is considered complete if it is possible to use a clamp to bring all the corner gaps “into a thread” - there is no need to turn the screw any more.

Now, if a series of products is being made, after gluing one screw, the screw is loosened, the next one is inserted (with glue in the corners), the clamp is tightened “to the threads,” etc.

general characteristics

A clamp comes in handy when you need to secure parts to give time for glue to dry or to perform welding. When assembling furniture, the device will help you assemble elements without displacement and drill holes for fasteners in the right place. The homemade tool weighs a little, but it handles the fixation perfectly. It is easier to move from place to place than a regular construction vice. The corner clamp for welding is made of metal.

There are two stops on the clamp of the homemade device. There must be a block clamp with good mobility, so it can be used for workpieces of different sizes. For high rigidity of fixation, a screw and a lever mechanism must be present. For the carpentry option, the use of a runner and a strip is allowed. But with any design, the stop parts must be movable.

Benefits of the tool

Due to the high cost of factory-made products, it is profitable to make a clamp yourself, but savings are not the only advantage of the tool. Clamp calibration tailored to specific jobs will help secure parts better. If the clamp is made for a one-time job, cheap materials are used in production.

Screw clamp

The most unpleasant thing when using a clamp is if the washer (heel) gets stuck on the hinge and begins to rotate the part. The clamp then has to be removed and reinstalled, and the small part may break.

To avoid such a situation, the heels of factory-made clamps are placed on a ball stop, on the left in the figure:

Designs of screw clamps of clamps

Making it yourself is unrealistic: in addition to precision turning, you also need metal that combines high strength and toughness. Therefore, the clamping units of homemade clamps are most often made with cup-shaped ones under a screw with a washer (drawings on the right there). Such a clamp requires regular maintenance: the heel is rinsed in kerosene 2-3 times until the dregs of worn metal cease to stand out. Then add 2-3 drops of spindle, watch oil, etc. to the junction of the heel and the screw. liquid lubricant.

About carving

Threaded pairs of factory clamps, as you know, have a special thread - rectangular or trapezoidal with an increased pitch. A DIYer will most likely have to use a piece of threaded rod and a regular nut with a metric rolled thread. To prevent the clamp from jamming, you must, firstly, go through the nut with a second tap, respectively. standard size. If the thread is larger than M12, then use the second and third taps sequentially. The rod is similarly passed through with a die 2-3 times until the die (the die) starts to “run” freely along the thread when struck with a finger on the carrier of the driver. Secondly, the threaded pair must also be regularly wiped with a rag with kerosene and lubricated with any grease for machines and mechanisms.

Note : if a nut is welded onto the frame of a metal clamp, then the thread in it actually has to be cut anew - the original thread is strongly influenced by welding.

In conclusion, we give a video overview of various designs of clamping washers for homemade clamps:

Clamp in the form of a caliper

Devices that are shaped like calipers are used to firmly hold small parts. For a homemade clamp, you will need, as before, plywood and small thickness bars.

For screws, it is best to take studs with rectangular or trapezoidal threads. The thread pitch is 2 turns per cm. It is very good if the stud has a rear sight on one side of a slightly smaller diameter than the thread. It can be used to seat the handle. On the other hand, a rear sight with a slightly larger diameter to accommodate the bearing is desirable.

So, in the simplest clamp, one end will be stationary, and the second will move through a worm gear.

To release the workpiece, you need to move the bracket to the required distance and turn the knob a few turns. This will fix the element. After this, you can release the mechanism and the workpiece will be released.

The simplest version of this model is equipped with a rail structure. The guides, which are arranged in parallel, have cut grooves at equal distances. Fixed stops are secured using rods made of metal. They can move exactly along the width of the workpieces. At the end of the beams, fixed stops should be installed, which have a worm mechanism. The usual method is to clamp it with a hairpin and a furniture nut.